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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

Ladies and gentlemen of the cake community, I come to you today with a matter of grave concern to us all.

Allow me to present exhibit A:

These seemingly innocent "cakes" are instead a threat to all the sugary goodness we hold dear. Observe:

Once sliced, you will note that these "cakes" are not cakes at all. Instead, they are layers of various meat and mayo-based salads, bread, and then - here's the worst part - "iced" with creamcheese. Note how the creators of these twisted impostors then push the deception even further by decorating the "cakes" with little roses, vines, and piped borders.

I ask you, fellow carb-lovers, are we to allow such cake defamation to stand? Will we sit idly by while our children and grandchildren are subjected to cakes that are not cakes? And if so, what next? Liverwurst doughnuts? Tuna-filled eclairs? Meat pies? (Oh, wait...)

Nay, I say, nay! We shall rise up, and as one declare that our butter cream icing must remain unsullied, our baked goods pure in sugar. Join me, and together we can make our world a place of fat, sugar, and dairy-based products for all!

Reader Comments (232)

That is gross and weird. Though...I guess I would tolerate it if I had some warning first, or something.

I am totally with you on the "together we can make our world a place of fat, sugar, and dairy-based products for all!" as long as you take the dairy-based bit out. I like my cakes vegan (and so do the cows and chickens! ;) )

I have nothing against sandwiches, but these sandwich loaves have as their main ingredient mayo - it is the glue that sticks that together. Soggy white bread with solid blocks of mayo is pretty gross. I like my bread whole-wheat or at least toasted, so it doesn't have the texture of paste.

Not to debunk this, because yeah--I'd be pretty surprised if I thought I was getting cake and I ended up with a BLT--but "sandwich cakes" are pretty standard in Sweden. As long as you are expecting "sandwich flavor" and not "cake flavor", they're generally pretty good.

Agreed! This is exactly the cake I was trying to tell my friends about. The story is....one Valentines day when I was about 6 years old I was at a party and so excited to see this yummy, delicious looking cake that was in such a different shape than I had ever seen a cake in. As To my surprise, I went to take a bite thinking this was going to be all sweet and yummy it was quite the opposite. Now, I am a type of person who does not like sandwiches or even salad's of this type I was in horror and so put off by this cake! WHO on earth would do such a terrible thing to a little six year old just wanting a yummy piece of cake. I will forever be scared.

That reminds me of a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 70s that an old roommate of mine had. They had a sandwich much like that, only it was much more obvious that it was a sandwich and not half as appetizing in appearance. Still disgusting.

This particular cake might not be that great but the concept of a non-sweet cake is very widely known and accepted here in Scandinavia. A 'sandwich cake' is what it's called, with a rather liberal translation, and it's not a crime.

These cakes are a leftover from the 1950s in the US. I worked at a museum and got a caterer to make one for our 1950s Christmas party. It was actually very good, like a sandwich filled with tune or ham salad with a little extra cream cheese on top. Yes, you shouldn't knock it until you try it. They were actually eaten up by our visitors during that event.

I actually made one of these iced loaf cake sandwich thingies because I came across them online and thought they were so freakishly odd, I just HAD to make one. I did the whole nine yards, including putting pineapple juice in the cream cheese frosting, etc. I did not eat any. I wish I had tried it, but you know how it is when you're hosting a party, you wind up serving everyone and not eating all the stuff you made. Anyway, my father-in-law wolfed down the whole load. He said it was good. It was certainly an experience making one. A retro moment indeed.

Looks really yummy to me. I love meat salads (my mom used to make them all the time when I was a kid and we were broke as a joke) and if the cream cheese was a savory flavor, it seems like it'd be awesome.

Ooh, imagine smoked salmon, oh, that'd be really awesome.

I'm not from Northern Europe, either, just Oregon. :P I live in Australia now, the land of the meat pie, (WHICH ARE DELICIOUS) so maybe I'm a little biased.

I think the decorations are cute, too. Why don't you guys have problems with sweet cakes dressed up to look like pizza or spaghetti? OH NOES, THE TRAUMA!!! I thought it was going to be delicious spaghetti, and when I took a bite...IT WAS CHOCOLATE! I threw up.

Silly. You can tell from looking at it that it's meat filling. Especially if it's on your plate, a foot away from your face.

As some people already pointed out, this cake is a party standard in Finland and other Baltic countries. It's nothing to go "yuck" about. It's just that different cultures have different kinds of foods!

It's not like we don't serve sweet cakes as well, and besides, it's pretty easy to recognize which ones are the salty "sandwich" cakes, as these are usually covered in decorations made of vegetables, cold meats etc. Yes, real ones and not some made of frosting!

But yeah, sandwich cakes (voileipäkakku[Finnish]/smörgåstårta[Swedish]) are really popular here. We tend to serve them whenever possible and most people love them. I've never seen such a deceptive one tho. I'd eat it anyways :).

I know this is years later, but I have to say...they're ribbon sandwiches! Oh my goodness, those are so yummy! But I suppose that if I thought it had been a cake, I would have been disappointed. And the piped roses and borders are rather misleading. ;)

We actually have a place here that ices a wheel of cheese with cream cheese and then decorates it with tinted cream cheese roses, leaves and such. So it looks like a regular, round cake. Very disappointing when you see it on the buffet table and think "CAKE" only to be given a wedge of cheddar!!

These were all the rage when I was growing up in the 70's. everyone knew they weren't cakes but sandwiich loafs. I thought they were rather dated even then! but they were prettier on the table than a sandwich plate. and they were quite tasty. what will they bring back from the dead next? Granny dresses? (oops, yes they did.) bell bottom hip hugger pants? (YIKES! they DID!) ah well.

Actually I think these cakes sound pretty good. Maybe a bit less cream cheese as icing, but overall it sounds good. I'd just take out the flowers and so one though, but perhaps they were for a wedding of a diabetic.